Matt & the Dying Old Woman
by lostcowgirl
Summary: ATC for Long, Long Trail set between Seasons 19 and 20.  Matt tells Gody Banes what he should have told her when he was with Sarah Drew and should have told Kitty


**Matt And the Dying Old Woman**

Matt Dillon's world was upside down. Just when he decided he could finally, when the time was right, ask Kitty to marry him, she was feeling like maybe it was time for her to leave. She'd been gone an awful lot lately, so much so that he hardly stopped in the Long Branch anymore and had nearly lost track of where she'd gone this time. He wondered if she still wanted him in her life or did he remind her too much of her life as a cow town saloonkeeper waiting seemingly forever for a real home and family? He sensed she'd grown tired of her life including waiting for him to ask her to become something more than his woman. It wasn't that the town didn't think of them as a couple. They did. He just couldn't bring himself to make it official and her time for having children was running out.

He'd completed his early rounds and was thinking about Kitty and what an empty life he'd have without her, especially after his inevitable retirement, when a farmer and his wife came into town and stopped in the alley that led up to Doc's office. He walked toward them as they began to carry what appeared to be a body, wrapped in a blanket, up the stairs. Bodies, even those of people who died of natural causes were of interest to him, so he moseyed on over.

"Hold on a minute there, folks. Let me have a look."

"Sure, Marshal, but it hardly signifies," the farmer replied, noticing the badge. "We're bringing an old woman, a neighbor of ours, to the doctor. She's become much to frail for even a close neighbor to look after properly. Come with us and you'll find out everything there is to know."

Matt rushed ahead and opened the door for them. They put their burden on Doc's examining table still wrapped in the blanket. Now, however, Matt could see the old woman's face. It had been far too long since he'd visited her, 13 years. He'd last seen Gody Banes in her shack on his way back from trying to bring Sarah Drew to her lieutenant at Fort Wallace. He hadn't said much to her then about what happened, only that Sarah was dead – shot by the person she'd brought to save his life from fever brought on by an arrow in the shoulder.

Lou and Nellie Bradford were explaining to Doc about his patient's ebbing strength leaving Matt to gaze upon the woman he hadn't seen for so long. Gody stirred slightly as if she sensed she and her neighbors had reached their destination and one of her boys from her past was gazing curiously at her. She moved her head just enough so her eyes could focus on him, which was all she had the strength to do.

"Matt Dillon, son, I've come to see you this time. Have you managed to listen to your heart yet?"

"Yeah, Gody, I reckon I have, but I haven't acted on it yet," I replied in her ear. "I know back when I brought Sarah with me to your cabin on our way to join up with her fiancé you thought we were both being dishonest with ourselves. Yes there was a pull, but it was more of a one for Sarah than for me despite what you thought. I already felt a bigger pull to another woman that had been in my life for almost seven years when I stopped by with Sarah. You may have had the wrong woman, but you were right about me being a fool for not marrying her right away despite believing any day might be my last. It's time I tell her I'm finally ready to make our relationship permanent."

The Bradfords saw that I knew Gody and so felt free to leave her in Doc's care knowing she wouldn't die alone. They bought their supplies and left for home early the next day knowing they'd done all they could for that good woman. That same day, after Doc agreed, Matt moved the dying woman to Ma Smalley's boardinghouse so she'd be more comfortable. Besides, with Kitty out of town, Ma was the best available nurse. He would have preferred Kitty looking after her. He was sure she would have done it if he asked, but with luck she'd return in time to at least meet the woman who'd become a second mother to him. Meanwhile he spent as much time as his job and her condition allowed with the old woman talking about things he'd kept inside himself until now.

That first day, Matt waited until Gody had a chance to rest and become accustomed to her new surroundings. Ma had just left the room with a once full, but now empty tray as Matt entered. The old woman, propped up in bed with pillows, was looking much better than she had the day before in Doc's office thanks to a warm room, Ma's food and people to care for her. Doc felt it would maybe give her a few more weeks.

"Sonny, you've come to see me again, but I don't see anyone with you," Gody said looking toward the door where her hostess was leaving and he was entering. "When you gonna bring that gal over to meet me? It's not as if I have a great deal of time left me."

In reply he handed her a picture of the two of them they'd taken during that short vacation trip to Denver about three months back to have a specialist Doc knew of look at his gun arm and give it a bit more time to heal. He owed Kitty the time and explained all about what had happened leading up to the trip to the dying woman. Then, he proceeded to tell her about the fiery redhead in the photo with him who'd captured his heart close to 20 years ago. He told her about seeing her in the café, a cheaper place than Delmonico's, but still okay for breakfast where she'd sat down to eat a quick meal before he'd come in for his normal breakfast and wanting to meet her. Lucky for him she decided to stay to find out more about the biggest man she'd ever seen in her life. In order to do that, she took a job at the Long Branch as a hostess while he found himself stopping there as much as he could just so he could talk to her. At first, that's all they did he explained because of the dangers of his job, his sworn duty and need to uphold the law and trying to forget Leona – Lee – the woman who almost caused him to actually buy a ranch and quit to raise a family. Soon, however, he told Gody he was taking her fishing and then asking her to social events in town. Despite wanting to avoid a relationship, he couldn't. There was just something about her that drove him to get closer.

"By our first Christmas back in '67, she was the closest friend I had. She's a take-charge woman who, despite being there only six months, organized a Christmas Eve dance at the Long Branch. Lucifer Jones, an old man who hated her because she reminded him of his pretty daughter who ran away from home, tried to kill her with a shotgun at the dance. I was running late because of the job and got there after Chester's brother Magnus had already disarmed Jones. You remember, Chester Goode. He was my assistant back then. I treckon we rode out to your place together once or twice and he might have stopped by on his own too. Anyway, I found I was relieved she was unharmed."

Matt then went on to tell Gody about how Kitty, despite being looked down upon by the respectable ladies because of how she earned her living, stuck up for him and herself when Mrs. Stoner put a bounty on his head after he'd killed her husband while trying to arrest him for murder. It was because Kitty was willing to face the embittered woman on his behalf he then told Gody he asked the most remarkable woman he'd ever met to the charity dance despite her objections, which proved to be true. Those respectable ladies and their husbands refused to accept her. They'd made her so miserable that she ran back to the Long Branch crying with him following close behind. They had their own private dance.

"After that night, she became my girl and I wasn't about to let anybody hurt her if I could help it, but Kitty still wasn't sure where she stood with me. I tried to explain to her that it couldn't go any farther, what with the job, at least publicly. It was just too dangerous for both of us and I sure didn't want to leave behind a widow and orphans. For her part, she agreed that I shouldn't quit until I was ready to retire, but she was willing to accept the dangers if she had to. She'd respect whatever I decided and live with it as long as we kept seeing each other."

It was still during that first year Matt explained to Gody that Nip Cullers, an old and rich rancher, decided she'd make the perfect wife after Kitty stood up for him against the other Long Branch girls who were teasing him. When he arranged for a preacher and didn't seem to be listening to Matt, she threatened to take a shotgun to him.

"I'm afraid I shouldn't have let things go that far. By the time I stopped laughing in my beer and took the situation seriously Cullers wasn't about to leave her alone. He even threatened to kill me for interfering with his woman despite the fact that whenever he saw Kitty she was with me. Later that night, when the evidence pointed to her, Kitty not knowing me enough to understand what I was doing, got mad when I told her to wait in my office. She thought I needed to hear her deny the charge to believe she didn't do it. It turned out Cullers' housekeeper Nettie did the shooting as the only way she could get his attention after waiting 20 years and raising his children, for his mother to die so he'd feel free to marry again. He finally realized how much she cared about him and agreed to marry her. That was the first time Kitty teased me about our getting married. She decided she'd get me to the church somehow before 20 years passed. As the years went by and she still stuck with me, I grew more embarrassed when she mentioned marriage in public and I now know it was the underlying cause of our private arguments."

Matt told Gody about the incidents that deepened their relationship – a few with each visit so as not to tire her too much. Later that first day at Ma's he told her how he'd called a killer named Crego out in Mr. Jonas' store for causing Kitty to have to slap the man while Matt was in the back room removing his new courting coat, as she called it. He didn't admit it then, but Matt was angry because Crego insulted her. When it came to perceived insults, he found he was quick to anger. Sometimes, their increasing closeness was simply due to seeing how perceptive she could be and still want to be with him despite the restrictions he placed on them being together. She saw right through Cara, an old girlfriend turned outlaw. All that the woman wanted was to presume upon their former closeness to get him out of town so her lover and the rest of the gang could rob the bank. Another incident soon afterwards brought home to Matt just how much Kitty had come to me to him. He laid a trap for Meyers, a man who'd played a cruel trick on his Kiowa friend Tobeel and then tried to frame the old Indian for the murder of his wife, who he was afraid would talk. He told Gody how he couldn't draw his gun for fear Meyers would shoot Kitty when her surprised outburst at seeing him in the mirror let Meyers know about the trap. It took Tobeel's skill at knife throwing to keep Meyers from getting away and maybe killing Kitty once he'd taken her out of town.

"I came close to giving up the badge that first year," Matt told Gody. "I'd gone after a gang of outlaws myself and gunned all but one of them, their leader. He kept taunting me about how bloodthirsty I must be to have killed them all that way. You know I don't like killing. It's the worst part of my job. I quit, stopped wearing my gun and was thinking I was finally free to really court Kitty and set a date once I figured out how I'd earn my living. That hope didn't last too long. Chester rode to our picnic spot to tell me he couldn't handle the killers and spoilers, especially the one plaguing the women of Dodge right then because he lacked the skills. Only I could. Kitty understood I had to live up to my oath."

On the second day at Ma's Matt told Gody of how worried he became after two old men accused Kitty of shooting one of them and when he went to ask Kitty who was in her room about them, someone took a potshot at her through the window before he got as far as the stairs while leaving.

"Sonny, that didn't have anything to do with your job. It was her job and her looks that put her in danger. From what you've told me, she's not one of those hide behind her man women who can't take care of herself if needs be."

"I know, I often forget that working in and running a saloon has its own set of dangers that Kitty's perfectly capable of handling for the most part. I've seen the results of too many brawls and gunfights in them when I get there too late to stop them. It wasn't long after those two nesters on their last fling left town and I learned the shooter was the wife of one of them that Kitty went from employee to half-owner. That's another thing about her I've grown to love. She's perfectly capable of providing for herself and quite well. She knows how to succeed where many men have failed. We'd been walking out together for two years by then, so she felt she could ask me to meet her father when he came in on the stage. He'd deserted her mother when she was a baby and, although he'd had some hand in her life after her ma's death, she was quite nervous meeting a man she couldn't even recognize. I was worried I was gonna lose her when it looked like she was going home to New Orleans with him. We finally had a chance to be alone and talk when he went to buy their tickets. Kitty didn't trust Wayne Russell either, so together we worked out a scheme to send him packing. That's when he finally realized we were more than friends. Too bad Cam Durban didn't realize that. He became convinced, thanks in part to the malice of a dealer Kitty fired for cheating, that I was having an affair with his wife and Kitty was only defending me in order to keep from being embarrassed in front of the whole town."

On his next visit Matt told Gody about his own uncertainty about how Kitty felt. This time it was her first adult lover turned outlaw who came to Dodge and she paid attention to him as if they might reunite. Cole Yankton succeeded in robbing the bank, but not in getting away with it despite Kitty asking Matt to eat at a restaurant at the far end of town while he and two others robbed the bank. She made certain he understood that she didn't help him and would have said no had Yankton asked. Then Matt, to further inform Gody of the ups and downs of their courtship, told her about Kitty's rash decision to take a buggy rider with a dude from New York City because he'd spoiled her plans for their evening off by working. The axle bent and they were stuck for the night out on the prairie. If that wasn't bad enough, he rode off when they spotted Indians leaving her alone until Matt and Chester showed up. Rachmill wasn't the cad he at first appeared to be, so Matt changed his opinion and Kitty relented and agreed he could have supper with them.

"Gody, I had reason to be frightened about her being involved with me from the very beginning. It was three years after she became my girl that I received word that two brothers wanted as bank robbers were headed for Dodge. I was on my way to warn Mr. Bodkin when I saw Kitty riding back into town. I asked her to breakfast and she decided to wait for me in the bank. The two must have been watching us because they used her as a shield to get me to drop my gun and let them go. I offered myself as hostage but the older one wouldn't accept it and kept Kitty. All I could do was follow after them when they were too far ahead to see me and Chester. He brought up a possibility that made me angry, so much so that had I found out it happened I would have carried out my threat to tear them limb from limb. I killed both of them as they came out of the cabin where they'd stopped for the night before they could shoot Kitty. All they'd done, it turned out, was not give her any food or water so that she fainted in my arms."

During his fourth visit on the third day Matt told Gody about Billy Chrit, the much younger brother of Kitty's childhood friend Lucy coming to Dodge and asking if he knew a Miss Russell. He told her how he hesitated at first until he learned Billy was a family friend from New Orleans and then decided to take him to her. Billy, surprised to find she was a saloon owner who drank whiskey, thought it was no occupation for a lady. It was also his opinion that her customers didn't treat her with the respect due a lady. He kept challenging them to duals and Kitty soon ran out of ways to get him out of trouble. She asked for Matt's help, but like Doc he thought this was part of growing up. Not wanting to see the boy killed, Kitty finally told Billy she wasn't a lady and therefore her honor didn't need defending. Matt explained to Gody that he, knowing she's every inch the lady, comforted her by telling her he understood how hard it was for her to do what she did.

By the fourth day Matt told Gody about how a scare turned into a nightmare. It all began with a ride out on the prairie together.

"I had a rare chance to go for a long ride with Kitty when she went to visit friends who lived quite a distance out on the prairie and even dressed for our date. I must have been thinking more about the time we'd be spending together then the ride because I forgot to bring along water. She mentioned she was thirsty so we left the trail to head toward a nester's shack about a mile away when a rattler spooked her horse. I shot the snake but Kitty was thrown and hit her head. I carried her to the hovel the family lived in and had to force the father and son to do anything, even let us into their filthy home. Kitty in her fevered state begged me to stay with her and I wasn't about to refuse especially seeing how the boy, Lutie looked at her. I sent Lutie for Doc and grew more worried as Kitty's condition worsened and there was no sign of the boy or Doc. I then sent his pa, Reff and told him I'd kill him if he wasn't back by morning. Meanwhile, Lutie returned with the wagon and had his ma tie me to a chair since I was foolish enough, because all I could think about was Kitty, to leave my gun hanging out of reach. If it hadn't been for Mrs. Judson untying me and giving me a hidden gun, both of us would have been dead. Instead, it was Lutie who was dead and Kitty came to while Doc and I were bringing her home on the wagon Lutie'd stolen. I stopped the wagon and was by her side holding her hand the minute Doc told me she was awake. That was the first time I could lose her to something I had no control over."

He then went on to tell her about Jacob Leech coming to town seeking revenge against his former son-in-law because his daughter died in childbirth. Ollie Radford's current wife was about to give birth and Chester let it slip while talking to Kitty unknowingly within Leech's hearing where Radford was. Leech forced Kitty to leave the Long Branch and take him to Ma Smalley's where the couple was staying. Matt told Gody how he desperately searched in the dark for Kitty and Leech only to find that she using up as much time as she possibly could to give him a chance to find her had led the man to an abandoned building where she killed him in self defense. It was only in Matt's arms, he told the old woman that she finally gave into her emotions.

Matt told Gody, "I learned to trust Kitty completely, so much so that I put a young girl arrested with her father and brother in her custody and knew I could count on her no matter what. It didn't mean we couldn't disagree about something or someone. That's why I bet her a barrel of whiskey that Dolly Winters a girlfriend when I was still a kid in Texas was telling me the truth. As usual, Kitty was right about her. She wanted me to kill a man for her because he married someone else. Trust wasn't any part of the next incident. I almost lost her during the following year because a stray bullet hit her during a fight in the Long Branch. Being married wouldn't have prevented what happened because I never would have forced her to give up running the Long Branch. I loved her then and I love her now too much to tell her to do or not do anything just because of me. All I want is for her to be happy. As soon as I heard what happened, I went running up to Doc's office. She pulled through, but I sure didn't know she would when I took Doc's stairs two at a time."

By the fifth day Matt was telling Gody about the time he was accused of murder because Pat Swarner a man who wouldn't let Kitty alone was found beaten to death in an alley and the witness, a poor farmer who he'd befriended, said it was him. Everyone in town, knowing how he felt, Matt explained, thought he lost control because of what Swarner did to Kitty. Then there was Kitty's mysterious early morning trip out of town followed by her heading out again, without telling Matt exactly what she was doing, with a load of supplies including things for a young boy.

"I tell ya, Gody I knew she'd tell me all about it when she was good and ready, but I was sure bothered. Then a few days later there she was with this boy, maybe mine 'til she told me his name was Thad Farron. I still thought he might be hers, but I couldn't see her spending the sorta time she spent with me for the past six years with a known outlaw, handsome or not. Still, I was willing to help raise the boy if that's what she wanted. Turned out she killed his pa to protect the boy like she promised his ma, the outlaw's wife. What happened with young Thad is a whole other story I don't want to burden you with. Right now all I want to do is set you straight about that pull you talked about when I stopped by a month later with Sarah Drew. I liked Sarah, but Kitty'd already captured my heart, despite all my efforts to prevent it."

"Tell me, if you'd listened to your heart back then would you have brung Sarah along like you did letting her think there was no particular woman in your life like she had a man in hers?"

"Gody, we'd never have spent as much time alone, at least not in the free and easy way we did while Kitty was out of town. I reckon, I would have told her about Kitty same as she told me about Jamie."

Matt later told her about the Hillman, Orkey Cathcart, who decided Kitty was the woman he wanted to marry and how he didn't worry until she was kidnapped. Once that was obvious to him, Matt related to Gody that he wouldn't let Chester stop even though it was dark because he had to find her sooner rather than later. Then, Matt went on to talk about the old prospector Henry Cairn. His reaction to Kitty turning down his marriage proposal was to drive her out of business so she'd be forced to marry him. He related how he did what he could to keep her spirits up, but never once put an end to it by giving her the opportunity to marry him. Instead a death brought an end to the whole thing, and that death was nearly hers.

"Kitty and I were a couple in the eyes of everyone in town even if I didn't want to admit it openly. Still, I knew she would believe me over some gambler's woman. That's why about a year later I brought this woman straight to Kitty when she came to my room and threatened to scream I'd molested her if I didn't let her and her man cheat the town's citizens. Once I brought her to Kitty she had no power over me at all. Doc sure wanted to see us married. He even went so far as to win a wedding ring from a whiskey drummer. He was either gonna give it to Kitty when he walked her down the aisle or the abused young woman who he'd brought back to health. The way he looked at us, I knew he wanted me to propose right then."

Gody was tired by the time Matt left her bedside so he put off further tales to the next day. Gody had now been in town for a week. Her health had improved somewhat, but she was still fading, only slower. He began by telling her about when Kitty became furious with him for failing to escort her to yet another social occasion because of his job. He'd missed quite a few including the wedding of the faro dealer and young man who'd killed her father in self-defense that he'd kept from leaving each other despite their love for each other. She was angry, he told Gody, but that didn't change the fact he had to leave for Topeka and would miss the sociable. While he was gone, Kitty visited some friends some ways out of town and came upon an injured stranger. When he recovered and came into town, she began seeing him. She decided Ad Bellem was the perfect person to escort her to the Ford County Sociable because he knew how to make her feel like a woman although in a completely different way from Matt. However, even before Matt returned, Kitty began to have doubts about Ad when he pushed her friends away. It only became worse during and after the sociable. He became totally possessive and couldn't abide her being with anyone but him or her putting her own work first.

"Chester told me what had been going on, so I went to the Long Branch to find out for myself if I still had a girl. Ad sucker punched me and then threatened to kill us both if either of us raised an objection. He actually gloated as he told me he'd stolen my girl. We were lucky neither of us was hurt or killed before I shot him to death. All I know is Kitty willingly came back into my arms. Then, a month or so later, I kept a promise to a dying friend to bring his young daughter back from the farm where she was living to go live with her aunt in another town. From the picture I thought she was 10, but she was 16 and had a crush on me. Because she'd largely raised herself, she didn't know not to chase after me. Kitty was willing to help with educating her if only to get her away from me. I think a bit of Clarey rubbed off on Kitty because after I'd seen the girl off on the stage, Kitty came up behind me right on Front Street and threw her arms around me, hugging me tight while saying, 'I been missin' ya Dillon!' just like Clarey would have before learning to act like a lady and keep her hands off me."

By the seventh day at Ma Smalley's Matt relayed the tale of how he became worried because the stage Kitty was on with the daughter of one of the girls who used to work for her didn't arrive at its destination. He found the stage and two dead men, but no sign of Kitty or the girl. A bit further along the trail he came across a relay station with a dead man in it, but still no Kitty or her traveling companion. He finally rode into Garden City and down the street where her former employee lived only, to his joy, to find Kitty leaving the house to head home. It gave him, he told Gody, another chance while holding her close to let Kitty know how proud he was of her. That time it was for getting her charge safely to her mother despite having to kill one of the stage robbers to get there.

"Gody, I think I felt the worst after we'd been seeing each other for nearly 10 years. I was fretting, wondering if Kitty, who'd gone to Wichita for Chester's wedding would actually come back home after nearly four weeks away. Festus wasn't any help. He kept hoorahing me, which only made it worse. Then a farmer brought in the stage she was supposed to be on five hours late. He found it on his land with no passengers. My worry turned to fear. I formed a posse to look for her and we came upon a woman who was on the stage and one of the kidnappers. They trusted she would merely arrange for the ransom and not refuse to come back because they kept her son with them. I got the $60,000 from the Dodge City bank and, following instructions, Festus and I headed to where the passengers were being held. I rode down the hill alone to make the final arrangements. The leader agreed to let the rest go, but told me he was keeping my girlfriend while Kitty and I were embracing. You know this didn't sit well with me. The momentary shock allowed him to grab her and one of his men to disarm me. If it wasn't for the explosion of gunpowder in the corral where they'd been kept, I wouldn't have been able to save her. Why couldn't I admit how much I love her when we got back to town and think about setting a date?"

"I don't think you want me to answer that Sonny. You wouldn't be telling me all these stories of how much you love her if you didn't already know you were lying to yourself."

Matt then told about what Kitty did for him not long after. She felt sorry for a widow left to raise a young son after her husband was shot by a posse and so hired her as a singer after helping her to loosen up her style. Her husband's some time partner had told her Matt was responsible, which, since he led the posse, he didn't deny. Once Kitty found out the widow wanted to kill Matt, she fired her. That's when the woman realized a relationship existed between them, to which Kitty replied, "he's his own man but more mine than anyone else's."

"The following year," Matt told Gody on his next visit, "Kitty went into mourning for me. The town was taken over by an army led by Mace Gore and I was shot down trying to get out of town to Fort Dodge for help. Doc told her I was dead. He sent her to spend what was left of the night here at Ma Smalley's and only brought her back after the plan I hatched and Festus carried out worked. The gang fell for the trap. They tried to rob the train they thought was full of gold but it was actually full of soldiers and their horses. Meanwhile, I killed Gore with the three bullets left in the gun Festus had found before Gore finished me off. The effort sapped me of what little strength I had. Doc had removed four bullets and by all rights I should have remained lying where he'd operated on me. Festus had to help me into a nearby chair in the hall leading to the Long Branch basement where I'd been. When Kitty came in with Doc I couldn't move a muscle except to hold on to her to keep from falling out of the chair when she ran to me. She nursed me back to health in what everyone thought of as her rooms, but were actually our rooms. I might have used the time we had alone to tell her I was ready to let the world know we'd marry after I retired, but I didn't do more than say, maybe some day. Her worrying after being angry with me didn't stop there. She thought I'd broken yet another date when I was taken hostage by escaped convicts. Her anger turned to worry when she learned the truth until I was safely home."

Matt then told about how it was his turn to worry. While he was out of town for a trial a man ending a cattle drive at the Dodge City depot attacked Kitty in her rooms and Festus killed him but not before being wounded by the man. The dead trail boss' father, a judge and important cattleman down in Texas, refused to believe his son was in the wrong. Instead he decided Kitty and Festus must be tried and hung for murder. When Matt refused to arrest them, Judge Strom and his remaining two sons captured the two of them and took them out on the prairie for the trial but not until one of them shot Matt in the leg so he couldn't follow. Despite the serious wound, he set out anyway because of his love for Kitty and concern for Festus. He ignored Doc's orders and formed a posse to find them, only to discover Doc was right and he was only holding up the posse by trying to lead them. Instead, while turning back, he spotted Doc being brought to where the Stroms were hiding out. He arrived bleeding and unable to walk in time to prevent the nooses from strangling Kitty and Festus and brought the two remaining Stroms back to stand trial in Hays because an impartial jury couldn't be found in Dodge.

Almost immediately afterwards, Matt related to Gody how Kitty ignored his warnings of the dangers of going to claim her inheritance from a friend alone in a particularly lawless town. He was furious with both Doc and Festus for letting her go there without insisting on going with her or at the very least following her while he was in Hays trying to save a man's life. Because he had to await the sheriff from Tascosa's arrival with the actual culprit, Matt couldn't leave immediately to follow after Kitty and neither could Festus because an injury prevented him from riding. He therefore sent Thad with instructions to send a letter back on the very next stage after his arriveal to let Matt know if Kitty's unharmed. Kitty, still mad at Matt for going off to Hays because she was in no mood to listen to why he was going, gave Thad enough reasons to not send the letter. This caused an already worried Matt to ask the Tascosa sheriff to take the prisoner to Hays while he went after Kitty and Thad. He arrived at the mine with a mute young man who, along with his mother had been helping Kitty only to find her and Thad on the losing end of a fight. Matt ended it, but Kitty remained miffed even after they returned home. She finally relented one evening in the Long Branch and asked how she could thank him. His reply was that a beer would be the start and they could talk about the rest of her thanks at a secluded table.

By day eighth day Gody was still holding her own, but preferred that Matt come by only once, early in the day when she felt strongest. He still had a long way to go before finishing his tales to the old women about his increasing need for Kitty and she for him. After 11 years together, he told her, they were more committed to each other than many a married couple. That's when everything nearly ended.

"I'd arrested the Stone family for bank robbery. Only the father was hung, but all but the youngest, Ben, who'd had no part in it, served six years in prison. Lou, Mike and Jack helped their ma to trap me by kidnapping Kitty and then getting me to follow on their terms by bringing Kitty's ring to my office. The Stone farm was a ten-hour ride from Dodge. When I got there, I learned Etta Stone planned to hang me and give Kitty 10 minutes, twice a day until the morning of the second day, just like what happened with her husband. When we were alone in the shed where I was locked in and cuffed, we clung to each other as best we could while I tried to encourage Kitty to escape. By that final morning Ma Stoner had killed her son Jack for trying to help us escape. It was clear she was crazy. All hope was gone and in frustration Kitty threw the tray with my last meal across the room. A gun lay on the tray. I distracted the son guarding my prison, saying Kitty was ready to come out and when he unlocked the door, I shot him and raced outside past Kitty. Only Ben, the youngest and Lou's wife Sara, who'd fallen in love with Ben, held back. She'd put the gun on the tray. I'd managed to kill the remaining son when Ma Stoner shot my gun away. As I reached for it, hampered as I was by the irons, I was exposed. Kitty saw the woman was about to kill me with her rifle so she grabbed the gun from the dead guard and killed her. It was only her love for me that allowed her to keep steady enough to do that, yet I still couldn't bring myself to ask her to be my bride. That image of leaving her a widow to raise our orphans still dominated my thoughts."

Matt went on to tell Gody about how Kitty felt guilty about lying to him when she harbored John Crowley in the Long Branch after he was wounded while killing a member of the gang of bank robbers who'd killed his brother. He was gunning them down one at a time in gunfights, which is how he happened to be on the same stage as Kitty, who was returning home, when the stage bogged down and they had to seek refuge at a relay station already occupied by renegade Indians. Crowley, acting like Matt would have had he been there, saved her life. In the end Crowley saved Matt from being shot, but the lawman still had to arrest him for the previous shooting. They stood outside Matt's office watching Kitty in mutual admiration of the woman Crowley knew loved Matt. Next, he told Gody about an event that occurred six months later.

"We finally had a chance to go on a vacation together, but I still put my job first. When I spotted a man I recognized from a wanted poster, I arrested him. Kitty wasn't too happy with me as we traveled home on the stage with the outlaw cuffed to me. It didn't matter to her though when the stage was deliberately wrecked so it could be robbed. Since she was injured the least and was still conscious, she switched my identity with the outlaw before the gang could get to the stage and then told them a story about how I was her man and been taken prisoner by none other than Matt Dillon. Unfortunately, my prisoner didn't die before he told the gang leader the truth. By then, I'd killed two of his men, the first because he tried to molest Kitty before I figured out how to get her safely away. The chance finally came when the leader sent her back to Dodge to collect a ransom for my release. I'd hoped she'd stay there, but she had to bring the money back just as she was instructed in hopes the slim chance that he'd actually keep his word proved true. It didn't, but she didn't go meekly with the gang and allow their leader to burn their hideout with me helpless inside. She wounded his pride and forced him to allow me to fight for my life. Despite a stiff gun arm from being tied to the chair, I outgunned him. Her gamble paid off, but I wasn't too pleased with her taking the risk and told her so. Still, I was glad she thought enough of me to risk her life for mine even when, in my mind, she didn't have to. I was perfectly willing to die to save her."

When Matt came to visit Gody on her ninth day at Ma Smalley's, he began unfolding his tale of deepening love with an event that occurred three months later than the last event. This one revolved around Newly O'Brien joining their inner circle of friends. Newly, mistaken for a doctor because he carried his gunsmith tools in his uncle's old medical bag, was taken with Kitty in a hijacked stage to a comanchero hideout in hill country that Festus knew well to tend to the wound of the leader's younger brother. Newly managed to get to Dodge and finagle a way to let him know so a rescue could be mounted, Matt related to Gody. He then told her of his musings when, a month on, triplets were born and needed to be adopted.

"Sonny, why didn't you give in then? You could feel how much she wanted you to be the daddy to your children. All you had to do was stop being a fool, set a date and adopt those three younguns."

"I couldn't do it. I still didn't want to leave a widow and orphans and those three would have been orphans twice if that happened. I wasn't even thinking about what else I might do for a living and I sure wasn't ready to retire as long as I could still do the job I'd sworn to do."

Matt continued his tale with an event that occurred a couple weeks later. This time the evidence pointed to him being killed on the trail, but his close friends refused to believe it without seeing the body the immigrant couple had buried before bringing his horse to town. Meanwhile, vigilantes with their own agenda took over running the town until Festus found Matt and brought him back to wrest the town back much to Kitty's joy. He finished his daily visit relating three events that came one after the other a year later. In the first Kitty's stage never arrived so Matt set out with Festus to look for her and found her held by a family bent on revenge that had no qualms about killing her. Earlier Mrs. Copperton, the matriarch of the ranch where Kitty found herself staying, had asked a question Kitty had told her was none of her business. When Kitty returned to the ranch with her son, now back to himself, granddaughter and Matt, Mrs. Coppperton had her answer, yes. Things weren't so clear-cut for Matt and Kitty when he brought a wounded old girlfriend home with him and asked her to look after the woman.

"Kitty was none too pleased with me especially since I nearly tore the head off the little gambler who was Lee's husband and had badmouthed her for running off with an outlaw. She was the woman I came close to marrying not long before I met Kitty. There was a wild streak in her that loved the danger and excitement my job could bring to her more than she loved me. That's why we broke it off even though being a US Marshal was still new to me, so I thought I could actually quit and try ranching to make a home for us. She didn't want me on my terms and I couldn't marry her on hers. Kitty wanted me to take less chances and would have preferred me quitting and doing anything that was less dangerous, but she was willing to wait for marriage until I either accepted the fact she understood the dangers and was, despite them, willing to build a life and family together as things stood or wait until I was ready to give up my job for her. The two women came to an understanding with Lee agreeing that Kitty was better for me than she ever could be. It all ended for Lee when she took a bullet meant for me. Her last words were to Kitty, 'Take care of him Red.'"

"You got yourself a remarkable woman there it seems to me, but no woman is willing to wait forever. You had to know that by then even if you didn't see it before. You had to know sometime another man could lure her away."

"I know that Gody, that's why I haven't held her to a promise to wait for me to be ready. If someone else can offer her that home and family, I'll be unhappy, but I won't stand in her way. Of course, there's always those who think you can bully a woman into believing he's the better man. Will Mannon was that kind of man. Newly came to get me as I was heading back home to let me know Mannon had bullied the town into doing whatever he wanted, starting with shooting Festus, my deputy, and leaving him to die rather than agreeing to ride double on his mule. I can't allow any man to shoot down my friends and ride roughshod over my town even if he is faster than me. I was ready to face him down and called him out as soon as I got back to town. I saw Kitty with Doc, but she was too far away and in shadow for me to see her clearly. Had I known what Mannon had done to her then and that she put herself in for more of the same just so she could tell him I was the better man and put just the slightest doubt in his mind as to him coming out on top, I don't know that I could have been as accurate. I might have been too full of anger. He was faster, but the doubt she'd sown meant he only wounded me so I could shoot him before he killed me."

Ten days had passed since Gody was brought to her bed in Dodge City and Matt was still telling her about that eventful 14th year he'd spent with Kitty. There was saving her, Doc, Sam and Louie from the bounty hunters who were after his prisoner and him. That ended with he and Kitty teasing each other in relief that everything turned out well before heading up to her rooms. Then there was Frank Reardon coming to town bent on revenge against the men responsible for his wife and unborn son's death when they forced her out into a bitter Montana blizzard. Frank, the former sheriff up in Hays and Maria, he informed Gody, were the closest friends he and Kitty had outside of their Dodge City family.

"Gody, you remember Frank, he came by with me a few times when were after outlaws and he might have come by on his own. Frank was ready to leave the law for his woman and move to the wilds of Montana so they could raise a family without people strongly objecting to her being Cheyenne. Kitty and I missed them. Had they stayed around maybe I would have followed his lead and not taken as much time telling Kitty how I really feel. I was his best man and Kitty was her maid of honor. Kitty had to remind me and Frank of that friendship before we faced each other on the street. I just might have lost because Frank's always been faster than me and he was driven to ignore the law while I was trying to remind him to stick by it and let me make the arrests based on his complaint. He finally came to his senses but it took his nearly dying and almost taking the one man who tried to help Maria with him before he did. It didn't make me change things with Kitty though, not officially, that is. Deep within me I knew, which is why when Doc observed how Festus was acting toward the widow Johnson during the city fair and jokingly said that it was different for those of us you are single, I replied he should speak for himself before I thought about what I was saying."

On day 11 Matt told about his introduction to Sargent Holly ten months after Frank Reardon headed back to his home. The man became convinced Kitty was a ruined women because she took the side of Gregario the Apache war priest who had taken her captive in order to use the buckboard she'd been driving back to Dodge as a means of escape. Matt knocked the soldier down with one punch for insulting her. A month later his life nearly came to an end.

"My badge was blown off by the force of the bullet. It deflected the bullet enough so I wasn't killed. I felt like I might have been better off dead. Kitty didn't come to see me at Doc's until she came by to say goodbye. Doc had told me what a fool I was, and I'm sure you'd agree with him Gody, but I couldn't tell her to stay because I needed her in my life and was ready to do what she wanted. Instead I said the usual but just short of an argument and watched her leave on the stage from the window. I needed her back in my life so I followed her to Ballard where she was staying with her friend Claire with the flimsy excuse I'd come to deal with Papa Steiffer's abuse of water rights. Kitty pretended she didn't want me there, but gave in to Steiffer the minute he set me up for molesting a young girl so the charges would be dropped. We had a long talk about what our jobs mean to us and underlying it was what we mean to each other. After her warning saved my life, I rode back to Dodge hoping she'd soon follow. I was miserable until she arrived late one night and we walked with our arms around each other to the Long Branch."

Matt continued his tale with an incident that took place nearly a year later involving Sargent Holly, who had stayed with the army at Fort Dodge just so he could be near Kitty and maybe win her over. He succeeded in turning her from an enemy into a friend. That's why she agreed to help him when he was accused of stealing the army payroll. When the real thieves were caught she purposely kissed the sergeant to make Matt jealous hoping it would spur him to finally make them an official couple. It worked, but not completely, which is why he could only guess she didn't tell Festus' friend Cleavus a month later when he showed interest in her that there was someone specific she was involved with, not just that she couldn't marry him because she didn't love him. It would have kept both her and Festus from nearly getting killed.

Day 12 brought the tale of Kitty being lost in the wild after a stage wreck six months later. It took all Matt's skills and a lot of worry for him to locate her and free her and the wild child who'd befriended her from the loco Mather family. Kitty convinced the child, who communicated in grunts and signs, that Matt was a special friend who could be trusted and that the pin she'd been given was a gift from him. Their entire 17-year relationship was thrown for a loop when Matt was ambushed as he headed up the stairs to welcome Doc home from Baltimore.

"Doc was afraid his hands were no longer steady enough to perform the surgery necessary to remove the bullet that was lodged against my spine without crippling or killing me. All I knew was I was slowly losing the use of my legs as the train sped toward Denver where there was a specialist. I was sedated and strapped to a table in the baggage car and much of that time Kitty was with me. That I helped thwart the robbers after the gold on the train, whose leader hated me for crippling his hand, despite being immobile wasn't what was important. My deputies are perfectly capable of carrying out a plan. What mattered was what Kitty had to tell me while she thought I was asleep. She reminded me that our 17 years together had to be the longest non-permanent relationship in history. I knew she'd stick by me even if I never walked again, but it was a relief when Doc decided the operation couldn't be put off any longer and removed the bullet before the train began moving again. As we continued on our journey the feeling in my legs started to return but I never followed up on the thoughts her musings had raised despite knowing I was her man no matter what."

By the 13th day he was telling Gody about two events that took place a year after the bullet that almost crippled him was removed. Both of them nearly got Kitty killed, but the second came the closest.

"Gody, I never ran so fast in my life across the alley to the Long Branch when Burke said the man we had in custody wasn't the right one. He wasn't the one who killed the man visiting his cousin who had come to me to collect the reward money for shooting a wanted man at a relay station. He shot the man for the reward while Kitty had shot him in self-defense, but the dead man's brother, who nobody had seen, wasn't buying that. I'd put a 24-hour guard on her, but Sam, her bartender went home when he heard we'd caught the man. I got there just in time. There was nothing I could do to prevent what Jude Bonner and his dog soldiers did to her. He wanted to force me to stop his brother's hanging so he took Kitty despite the town protecting her. She's not the kind of person who can allow her friends to be hurt protecting her. She told Bonner she was the woman he was looking for. I was sure I'd be able to stop the hanging within the law, but when the governor turned me down after telling me he knew it was Kitty and sympathized with what I was going through, it was too late. Virgil Bonner was hung and Bonner and his followers did unspeakable things to her. I don't even know all that happened to this day because she still can't talk about it even to me. They brought her back to Dodge more dead than alive and then Bonner shot her as she crawled toward her front door. When I got back Doc told me she'd lost the will to live. All I could do was sit by her side and tell her how much I needed her until Doc told me she'd make it. That's when I lost it, just like Doc predicted I would while Frank was in town acting crazy because of what was done to Maria. I left my badge on Doc's desk and set out for revenge. I didn't care anything for myself but I also forgot what Kitty needed I was so taken over by sheer hatred. All she wanted was me to be there for her because at that point I was her only reason for living. Lucky for me my deputies and half the men in town followed. They arrested Bonner's gang and in that way prevented them from killing me and me from killing Bonner with my bare hands by smashing his head with a rock."

"Sonny, you're even more of a fool than I thought back when I thought the woman for you was Sarah Drew. You nearly murdered a man with your bare hands for what he did to your woman and you still didn't ask for her hand?"

"By golly, that's about the size of it. We were closer than ever as a couple, but she could still get mad at me. Our making up, though, was wonderful, you know. I couldn't always meet her expectations despite my best efforts like when she wanted a romantic evening about a month after her ordeal and I fell asleep across her bed. That got her mad all over again but only for a short while. She proved that when she played poker for my life and even cheated to make sure she won. Right after that we had another dinner in her rooms. She knows me so well that this time she sent me away to find Adam Kimbro, the man who gave me my first job as a deputy despite me being too young, so I could help him. I temporarily deputized him and we set off to bring a gold shipment to the bank for a bunch of miners. He died helping me protect that gold but not before he gave me a bit of advice. It was after he accidently met up with his version of Kitty and her two children by the man she eventually married. He told me that the advice he'd given me years ago and had always lived by was wrong and that I should give my woman what she wants and deserves before she leaves me. I still didn't do it, don't you know."

Gody Banes had been in town for half a month. She was now weaker than when she'd first been brought to town. Her body was giving out, but she seemed to be keeping herself alive long enough for Matt to finish his story of his love for Kitty and hers for him. He'd reached the 19th year of their courtship so there wasn't much more for him to tell. She hoped she lasted long enough for him to finish and to meet this woman who'd captured his heart like Mr. Banes had captured hers on the day they met. That day Matt told her about chasing a killer into Arizona and his life being saved by a woman named Mike Yardner. While recuperating from his wound, being left in the desert and not knowing who he was, he fell in love with her and would have stayed with her had his memory not returned. He'd almost remembered when she mentioned Dodge City but everything came back when she called him Matt after the killer told her his name. He'd been attracted to her because in many ways she was like Kitty. A month after he came back they managed to arrange a getaway to St Louis. They were on the stage, because it left earlier than the train, when his job caught up with him. A telegram told him his testimony was needed at a retrial. Kitty, frustrated, decided to go on without him instead of going back to Dodge in the relay station buggy. On the trip Will Stambridge saved her life and decided to come back to Dodge to woo her. He even asked Matt's permission.

"Stambridge asked if Kitty was a free woman and all I could say was "if you don't know that, you don't know her." I watched as he courted her while the town wondered why I didn't do anything to stop it. I thought I was sacrificing my happiness for hers. After the town tried to lynch him and I put a stop to it before finding the real killer, Kitty decided she didn't want to give up the relationship we'd built over 19 years and the town applauded. That didn't stop me from four months later handing her a foundling while still not taking the step I knew she wanted. She was willing to give up her saloon to give the baby she named Mary a proper home even if I didn't join her in it but finally decided that a new widow who had just lost a baby and had everything set up at her farm would be the more fitting mother. That's the second time we could have started a family together, but I still couldn't bring myself to do it. Two months after that I put even more strain on our relationship when my gun arm was badly damaged. I felt I couldn't protect the people of Dodge and especially her while I couldn't shoot. There would be men after me and some would try to get to me through her. I left; telling her I'd write when I knew where I could settle, maybe up in Montana with Frank. Ever since I returned she's been spending more time away from home and I've come to realize that I have to finally do what I should have done years ago or I'll lose her forever just like Adam Kimbro said I would."

Matt was late the next day. He had to meet Kitty's stage when it arrived. After she had a chance to freshen up, he brought her over to Ma Smalley's to meet Gody. The old woman was barely strong enough to open her eyes and turn toward the visiting couple. Still, she managed a smile and a few final words.

"I'm sure proud to meet this gal Sonny here's been talking about for half a month now. It's about time you got back here. I can tell how strong the pull is toward each other so don't you be foolish and ignore it. That man of yours still has some surprises in store for you that you'd be sorry to miss out on. Have a bit more patience and he'll reward you with everything. Both of you remember, follow your hearts and everything will be all right," Gody said and then she died.


End file.
